Mod Post: Off Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

A Federal Judge has blocked plans by the Trump Administration to roll back healthcare protection for transgnder people

And in the sort of surreal bullshit that we should be used to by now, but thankfully aren't, Trump also lambasted New Zealand for it's "Big surge" in COVID 19 cases. New Zealand has recorded 13 new cases that day, and has had 22 deaths from COVID 19 since the START of the pandemic. Sigh...

A virtual Democractic Convention is underway, with, to the surprise of no one, Michele Obama making the best speech of the opening night.

In the UK, there was a spectacular U-turn by the Government (after days of "There will be no U turn" of course) over how exam marks would be awarded following a large outcry over not only how the ranking had been made, but how they penalised porrer areas in particular.

And in a move that is widely seen as more politically convenient than wise, Englands public health body is being dissolved (in the middle of a global-pandemic) to be replaced by a new body....

And in Belarus, protests over the recent election continue, with the President being heckled repeatedly at public appearances.

In infinitely lighter news, Phineas and Ferb are getting a new movie length special on Disney+ "Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe"

12 foot tall superhero haybales in Northern Ireland with facemasks on..." What more needs to be said? :)

Amboseli National Park in Kenya has reported 170 new elephant calfs being born in 2019, and overall the country has seen its elephant population increase from 16,000 elephants in 1989 to 34,800 by the end of 2019!

And "Doctor Who: Time Fracture", an "Immersive Theatrical Adventure" has been announced, with a trailer and everything

Random question of the week - What was the first piece of music you bought for yourself, be it download, CD, tape or vinyl (album or single.. yes, I AM that old)

Comments

[iamrman]

I am having a Sandman marathon at the moment. I am partway through 'The Wake'.

Comixology is having a bid DC sale on and I was thinking of getting the Death manga by Jill Thompson. Is it a real manga? I don't know, I only know that Death is my favourite member of the Endless and I am on the look out for more of her.

As for the first piece of music I bought for myself... Barbie Girl by Aqua on cassette. Yes, I too am old.

[icon_uk]

I'm not sure how to define "real" manga, but IIRC it is in the same sort of format as a standard published manga, with smaller page dimensions, but many more pages.

And that doesn't make you old BTW. I suspect my first record was bought before anyone who recorded on "Barbie Girl" was even born.

[zachbeacon]

Jill Thompson did a Death story (possibly two?) in Manga format. She also did a Manga format Dead Boy Detectives. Her Little Endless storybook was, well, a storybook but had the dimensions of a western comic.

Aqua is great though I think Barbie Girl is probably one of their weaker songs....so of course that's the one they're known for.

I don't remember the first cassette I bought for myself but I do remember listening to a lot of Garth Brooks and the TMNT "Coming Out of Our Shells" tour as a kid.

[skjam]

Local convention Convergence is having some events online. https://www.convergence-con.org/at-a-glance/convergence-online/
I'm scheduled to be on the Marvel 80th Anniversary panel on Saturday.

In slightly related news, over at my blog, I review some 1950s marvel comics, including the first known Stan Lee cameo! http://www.skjam.com/2020/08/16/comic-book-review-marvel-masterworks-atlas-era-heroes-1/

And while I'm not sure what the absolute first piece of music I bought was, I do know that the first band I ever collected the albums of was ABBA.

[icon_uk]

Good luck for the panel!

[tripodeca113]

The original creators of Avatar The Last Airbender have announced that they will no longer be involved with the live action TV show remake. This bodes ill….

Google is telling me that planned legislation by the Australian government will hinder their search results. I don’t like this. I don’t really have much faith in either party here.

Started The West Wing season three and reading Earthsea.

Went out for coronavirus testing, the price of public responsibility.

[icon_uk]

I was going to mention the ATAL thing, thanks for bringing it up, yeah, that does NOT sound promising...

[zachbeacon]

Best of luck on the test. Hopefully the turnaround in Australia is faster than the US.

[janegray]

Meh. I've lost a lot of faith in Mike and Bryan over the years. At this point I believe that Avatar was as good as it was mostly because of Aaron Ehasz.

And yes, I'm aware that Ehasz has been accused of a bunch things (although some of the allegations make no sense to me. Not because I don't believe them, but because I don't see anything wrong with them. The accusers should have just focused on his being emotionally abusive, instead of also bringing up a bunch of stuff that frankly seems entirely sensible to me and waters down their arguments).

But I'm talking about competence here. Actual storytelling abilities.

Mind you, I have little hope of the Netflix adaptation being any good. I just don't think the involvement of Mike and Bryan would have saved it.

[malurette]

My netbook is dying, two days before a planned vacation--virtually no time to have it fixed before I go, and if I choose to replace it the purchase will be rushed?
...then again, I'm not even sure my boss will let me go on this vacation on the first place.

[zachbeacon]

Finally got around to watching Doom Patrol season 2. Does anyone know if it was supposed to end like that or it was a COVID thing? Between the pandemic's impact on future filming and DCU getting folded into HBO Max, I'm doubtful that we'll ever see the end of this story.

[icon_uk]

A COVID thing, it was supposed to a ten episode series, not nine.

[cygnia]

"Monkees' Greatest Hits" -- on vinyl (early 80's when I bought it).

[mister_terrific]

...I'm racking my brains on the "first music" question...I'm going to say "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies, 1969. I got the 45. First album...I'm going to say one of Harry Chapin's in the mid-70's.

I bought a few of the Sandman collections on Comixology...I had been reluctant to get "A Game of You" because at the time I didn't like it, but my wife insisted on it. Rereading it...damned if I know what it was, but right now I'm really liking it. The collection I really wanted was "World's End", especially the Hob Gadling story. That one always stayed with me.

I'm REALLY enjoying "Once and Future", "Adventureman", and in the manga side of things "Komi Can't Communicate".

[remial]

first piece of music I bought myself?
well, I have a piss poor memory, and I'm sure there was something before this, but Meco's single of the Ewok Celebration on 45. I know there was something before that, as that came out in '83 or so, and I was 9 at the time. I had other music that I'd gotten, but that one stands out the most.

so the news bit that I have to share was actually announced last week, but I haven't seen anything here about it, so...

The company that developed D&D Beyond, a web app for Dungeons and Dragons, recently acquired the rights to develop a role playing game based off of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/legends-of-greyskull-masters-of-the-universe-tabletop-roleplaying-game/news/legends-of-grayskull-rpg-announced

it will be using the Cortex Prime system, that was developed by Margret Weis Productions, and is (mostly) the same system used by the role playing games for Firefly, Leverage, Smallville, and the most recent Marvel Comics RPG.

The game will be using the timeline of the original He-Man and She-Ra cartoons, but I would imagine that it can be easily hacked to be based off of the excellent DC series that started with Adam thinking he was a simple woodsman, and ended with the Eternia War (the omnibus of which I just finished reading last night, my GOD that was awesome. The Thundercats MotU crossover was kinda meh, but the rest kicked major ass.)

[onsokumaru]

First peace of music?

With my mom's money: either a vinyl of Bioman's french opening or a tape of various St Seiya french songs
With my own money: a CD collection of Grendizer soundtracks

I think I bought 1 vinyl, 3 tapes and 1 set of CD in all my 43 years of life.
All anime related
Yes, that's how much I care about music.

[malurette]

Whoooo Bernard Minet Forever!!

[silverhammerman]

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned reading Batman: Last Knight on Earth, and I ended up writing a short essay about it. It's about how Snyder and Capullo's aspirational take on Batman completely short circuits in the context of their barefaced 2016 election allegory and how the path they find forward with the ending is completely inadequate. I think it's worth reading.

Tough to name the first album I paid for. I came of age in the golden era of music piracy, so I can't remember paying for anything before university. It was probably either The Heavy's The Hurt and the Merciless or a donation-only album from a Soundcloud rapper I'd be embarrassed to name.

[cricharddavies]

That was a really good essay. It articulated a lot of the problems I had with that mini-series in specific and Snyder's work in general.

[shadur]

The president of Belarus has reportedly said that the next election will be held after he's dead.

Not, perhaps, the wisest choice of words...

[owlbrigade1]

A job for life, just not necessarily one for long.

As the late Terry Pratchett once said in Going Postal.

[agent8]

First piece of music I bought for myself was the Eagles "One of These Nights" album. On 8-Track Tape.

[comicbookgal52]

The first piece of music i bought myself was a 3 CD collection called "Rock This town" with classic rock music.

[deh_tommy]

I like MARVEL (mostly). I like anime (mostly). If I’m not being rude, might I ask if any of the MARVEL anime (Disk Wars, Future Avengers, etc.) are any good?

First music I bought for myself... well, usually the music I listen to comes from my parents’ old albums, whatever’s on the radio and what I can find on Spotify and YouTube. I got Twilight Princess HD on sale despite not owning a Wii U because that came with a toy and a selection of songs from the game. Does that count?

[janegray]

The Blade anime was good.

[viridian5]

I bought my first cassettes through Columbia Cassette Club so I bought 12 albums simultaneously as my first purchase. I don't remember all 12, but I know the clutch had George Michael (Faith), Genesis (Invisible Touch), Richard Marx, and Thompson Twins. I remember the first music I won though, which was a 45 record single of "Cruel Summer" by Bananarama at a school raffle.

[cricharddavies]

I'm not sure, but I believe that the first music I ever personally bought was a cassette single (remember those?) of Nikki French's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" cover. Wait, no, I bought a bunch of cassettes as presents for people before that. Ummm ... the first Travelling Wilburys, maybe?

[leahandillyana]

Yesterday I was on a protest in demand of freeing all the 50 people arrested last week as well as additional people arrested for "desecrating" various monuments in Poland. There were like 10x counterprotesters as us. I was kicked in the ass, turned, and was dropkicked in the head. It must have looked funny, it's a meme now on far right sites, but I lost my sight for a few hours after it. None was persecuted because I literally couldn't point who kicked me.
Today I found a pink triangle chalked on the sidewalk in front of my parents' house. That's how far right marks the houses of queer people. Again, I could do nothing about it. And honestly what I have to loose, I've been on kill list since 2011 for helping animals.
I found a baby pidge stuck in the net. I asked various people, police, the post office, for help, and nobody wanted to. Eventually an old man helped me tear the net and free the baby bird, which I put on windowstill. Its parents saw it all. I think they well take care of the baby. It's feathery already.
On completely differnt topic, Empyre might be the straw that broke Marvel’s back.
Let’s start with the obvious. One, the comic book industry has been in decline for years, and the coronavirus situation dramatically worsened the situation, with comics rescheduled for the next year or cancelled outright. Two, comics are a men’s media. Sure, there are titles that have mixed or mainly female following, especially Ms Marvel comes to mind, but most of the comic book readers are male, and, three, most of them are obviously straight. Now the part that may be less obvious: straight men strongly dislike male queerness in stories. In fact, most of them won’t even touch stories featuring male queerness to any degree. It’s not homophobic, it’s normal. Even most male LGBT allies don’t want to interact with queer media. That’s best visible in cartoons: you will find male queer characters in series aimed at girls (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), adult series created by a woman (Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss), adult queer series (Super Drags), but the one male-focused series that included male queerness and female-focused sexuality, Castlevania, dropped in following significantly after the inclusion and may not be renewed.
And now we have Empyre, a summer blockbuster event published among industry wide crisis that puts a gay male character front in center, and even a very heavily implied gay sex scene. Not only that, but the romance between Hulkling and Wiccan is constantly featured in a way that cannot be overlooked. Which means most readers won’t touch that comic. Also importantly, the female characters in the story are not sexy in the way comic book readers are used to – the art doesn’t exaggerate their bodies, and their costumes highlight the sense of power rather than sexiness, with sex bomb She-Hulk being drawn for some time as a bodybuilder. And this may prove fatal to Marvel. Don’t get me wrong, I like Hulkling and Wiccan and enjoy She-Hulk’s new look, but these characters would work best in niche interest series rather than main course. Even with Disney’s back up, Marvel cannot afford to lose sales, and I predict they will lose spectacularly this year. And after that we won't see any of Wiccan and Hulkling again.

[deh_tommy]

I’m sorry you have to go through this. May you keep safe and well in these troubling times.

Is Empyre doing badly, sales wise? And I thought Netflix didn’t give out TV ratings?

[zachbeacon]

So looks like Laura Loomer might be going to Congress because that's the world we live in now.

[icon_uk]

I had to google the name... gosh, isn't she a treat of a human being?

I also saw her electoral area includes the Mar-a-Lago resort.. because of course it does.

[deh_tommy]

I know they’re just parodying Apple’s ad, but Epic Game’s response to Apple pulling Fortnite from the App Store is so incredibly tone deaf. 2020 will become 1984 not because of the ever growing terrifying tide of nationalistic authoritarianism and xenophobic rhetoric, the gross and barbaric mistreatment of a nation’s civilians and even the land thatself, the barely hidden evident corruption in governments, no no no. That’ll be 1984 because Apple takes a 30% cut on profits from the poor underdog billion dollar game. I’m not trying to excuse or defend Apple or their business practices by any means, but they’re hardly the “monopoly” Epic makes them out to be considering a 30% cut is standard retail practice and Apple actually has proper competition from competing phone brands and companies. This whole “defying the Apple monopoly” comes off to me more like throwing a hissy fit that they can’t get ALL the money and have to settle on getting only most of the money than genuinely caring about the little guy.